A new initiative from the Paso Del Norte organization is hoping to fight human trafficking on three fronts -- awareness, education and service.

Paso Del Norte officials are scheduled to announce today the start of the Center of Hope initiative aimed at raising awareness and educating the public of the critical issue affecting the area, while increasing services to victims of human trafficking.

According to U.S. Attorney Yates, the charges and other information presented in court: Rojas-Coyotl and his uncles Odilon Martinez-Rojas and Severiano Martinez-Rojas used force, fraud and coercion to compel three women to engage in prostitution in Atlanta and Norcross, Ga.

What do a 14-year-old kidnap victim, runaway Kansas teenagers, and the now-adult child whose parents groomed and sold her for sex starting at age 10 have in common? They are all real examples of victims of human trafficking, modern day slavery right here in the United States.

Shandra Woworuntu once paid $3,000 to a broker expecting to get a job in a Chicago hotel and her ticket to the American dream. Instead, the then 25-year-old from Indonesia got sold into prostitution, literal sexual slavery.

On Tuesday, the federal government charged 13 men, nine of whom live in Queens, with crimes related to running an international sex trafficking ring from the rural enclave of Tenancingo, Mexico to New York.

This week, I visited a home in Tijuana for young girls who have been trafficked — bought and sold into slavery, sometimes across international borders, sometimes not, but always horrifically abused and tortured either psychologically, physically, or both — and spoke with them, an adult trafficking victim, and Alma, who started the home.